Redhawk Caldera Squid Game drill.

"I'm not going to Brecheliant." 

Ruenna let the words hang for a long moment, comprehending he weight of them. 

"Neither am I," she admitted, feeling a rawness in her throat, the hotness of tears welling. 

Here she and Towhee were, independently moving forward with their own personal plans, the whole time thinking that the other was happy to stay behind in some predetermined place and watch over the impressively large collection of pups they had amassed in Redhawk Caldera. Ruenna had imagined that even if she moved on to another pack to start her own family, she would always know where to go to find Towhee, Caracal, Sphyra and Tierra. Apparently Towhee had been envisioning the same, but in her version, she was the one who left and Ruenna was the one who stayed behind. 

It had dawned on Ruenna that if she and Towhee both left to seek their next chapters elsewhere, then this would truly be goodbye. There would be no certainty that they would ever see one another again. Thus, the tears. 

"I'm a diplomat, Towhee. Cleaning up Fennec's messes was hard enough--" she laughed in amusement, despite the threatening tears-- "But I had some responsibility in raising her, so I did it for her. But I won't be drawn into a futile effort to fix Reyes's never-ending cascade of mistakes. I'm not living in a pack that houses Reyes either." 

She sighed again. "But the children should be safe enough there, at least until they're old enough to make their own decisions." Ramesses had been personally insulted by Reyes, that was easy to see. But Akashingo had just come off of a war with the Saints, and Ruenna thought it was a safe bet that they weren't raring to start another one with Brecheliant. Besides, Ruenna had some insider knowledge that Akashingo meant to stack their military strength in the Sunspires. Pursuing an offensive maneuver in the Wilderness would be too divisive.